Wherever She May Be
by magicalmissnu
Summary: Jack can barely remember what happened after the Titanic sank that night. After nearly losing his life, he had woken up on a completely different ship with no Rose in sight. Terrified, he vowed he would find her if it was the last thing he did.
1. Aboard The Carpathia Rose

Summary: Jack can barely remember what happened after the Titanic sank that night. One minute, he was asking Rose to promise him that she'd survive. The next thing he knew, he had woken up on a completely different ship with no Rose in sight. Terrified, he vowed he would find her if it was the last thing he did. He can only hope that she is still alive somewhere, and that she hasn't fallen back into Cal's clutches.

Special Thanks to MirrorFlower and DarkWind for reviewing these chapters! :)

Disclaimer: Titanic, is James Cameron's masterpiece, not mine.

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**April 15, 1912**

_Aboard the Carpathia_, _07:00_

Rose's POV

It all happened so fast. It seemed like merely minutes ago that the Titanic had sunk to the bottom of the sea. On the lifeboat, it had seemed like an eternity. It was hard to believe that only eight hours ago, I had been warm and safe in Jack's embrace, without a single worry of the fate about to befall us. Less than eight hours ago, I had felt more joy and hope than I had felt in my entire life. I envisioned a future more bright, hopeful, and wonderful than anything I had ever previously imagined. There, in his arms, I felt that nothing else mattered. So long as Jack was with me, I would forevermore be the happiest woman in existence.

Now, he was gone. The man I loved, the man who had saved my life in every way imaginable, was dead. I clutched at the blanket that was wrapped over my upper body. More than anything, I longed to be surrounded by that gentle, loving embrace once more. I longed to hear that gentle voice, to feel his soft kisses. Anything, as long as I could be with Jack.

In my mind's eye, I was haunted by the image of his frozen body clinging to the door. I could see myself over and over again, trying to wake him. Over and over, the image came to mind of my nudging his arm, calling his name, only to find no response. A single tear escaped my eye, and I quickly wiped it away. I couldn't draw attention to myself, lest I inadvertently attract the attention of Cal or Mother.

Before long, it became impossible to control. Tears stung the corners of my eyes faster than I could wipe them away. I pulled the blanket I had more tightly over my head, hiding my face. My throat felt swollen and tight as I tried to control my emotions. Every fiber of my being longed for some kind of reassurance, against everything I now knew to be true. The more the image replayed in my mind, however, the more I realized there was no hope left. A small sob escaped my lips, as the impact of the previous night began to truly sink in. _Jack_.

Before I could stop myself, the tears began to flow freely from my eyes. I tried to hide my face, but it was impossible. All I could think about was Jack, giving up his life to save mine. I could see myself betraying him with my silence as he was dragged away, see myself wrapped in his warm embrace, see myself facing him as I lay on that floating door. My chest heaved with sobs as I doubled over, trying to hide my identity from the first-class passengers.

"_Jack_." I found myself whispering his name, softly, over and over again, as if it could call him back from the frozen waters. My eyes overflowed beyond control. _Why?_ I thought about the night he had saved me from suicide, the night he had taken me to my first "real party", and the time he had taught me to spit. Jack had been the sweetest and most wonderful man I had ever known. He had given my life meaning, purpose, and joy. What kind of a cruel God could kill such a wonderful man? What kind of a cruel God would take the wonderful man I loved, and yet spare the passengers who had looked down on him? _Why?_

By this time, the other passengers had noticed my distress. Some of the third-class women had gathered around me, having lost the men in their lives as well. Some were embracing me, others ignoring me, and others sending sympathetic looks in my direction. The commotion was enough to arouse the attention of the first-class passengers. Fortunately, though, it did not set off Cal's suspicions. I was still repeating Jack's name, but not loudly enough for any of the first-class passengers to hear.

"My Henry," one woman murmured, "fought off a guard who tried to block our path. Wouldn't let the bastard close the gate." She gave a slight smile, but there were tears in her eyes. The two young children that were with her were crying as well. "He was a good man."

"My little Beatrice," sobbed a woman I recognized from the lifeboat, "She ran off while we were waiting for the lifeboats, ran off in search of her father. I chased after her, but the crowds…", her voice broke, "It should have been her who was picked up by the lifeboat, not me!" The woman broke down in tears, sobbing uncontrollably. She was embraced by several of the other women, and I knew she had it much worse off. Losing the love of my life was horrible enough, but I could hardly imagine losing a _child_.

All the first-class passengers were looking at us with pity. I knew many of them had lost their husbands, but they weren't displaying it as openly. Some looked down on us with contempt, most looked down on us with sympathy and understanding. Out of all of them, I could hear Cal scoff at us. What an unimaginable bastard. One of the women shot Cal a look of deep disgust, before turning back to console the distraught mother.

"God dammit, Cal!", I heard Molly shout in anger, "These women just lost their husbands and fathers! Show a little decency, why don't ya?" Several of the passengers nodded in agreement. I did so slightly, but dared not turn around.

As the Carpathia sailed toward New York City, I found myself thinking once more of Jack. More than anything, I needed to comfort of that tender embrace. I needed to hear that deep, gentle voice. I needed to feel him safe and alive in my arms, and know that I wouldn't have to face the world alone.

It appeared I was not the only one.


	2. Aboard the Carpathia Jack

Again, I own nothing, and I do not profit from fanficcing. I just do this for fun.

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Aboard the Carpathia, 12 noon

Jack's POV

What happened? Where was I?

I was lying on my back, somewhere…dry. It was definitely dry, and…warm. I was laying horizontally on something solid and stable. There was a blanket draped over me, and I was lying on something solid, dry and warm. This was an improvement. There seemed to be a semi- soft surface beneath me…a mattress, perhaps? Was I on a bed? How did this happen? How did a warm, dry bed appear in the middle of the ocean? This didn't make sense. _Where was I_?

The last thing I could remember was holding on to the head of the door as Rose lay on top of it…

THE DOOR! ROSE! Where was Rose? Frantically, I tried to sit upright in the bed, only to find that my limbs would not move.

"Rose!", I called out. With the little strength I had left, It came out as barely a whisper. "Rose!" I tried to call again, but again my voice was barely audible. I could hear strange scuffling noises in the room around me, followed by what sounded like muffled human voices. My head was swimming, my heart was pounding, and my entire body felt stiff and numb. To top it all off, my arms and legs refused to move and my eyes refused to open. The voices surrounding me swam though my head. I tried to make them out, but the attempt resulted in a headache.

The worst part was that I couldn't make out the voices around me. There was a chance that Rose could be among them. I tried once again to move my arms and legs, to no avail. I could feel someone wrapping something around my hands, but I couldn't make out what was going on beyond that. The world was a blur, and my senses seemed to be dulled. I couldn't open my eyes, so I could not see. My ears were picking up sounds, but they seemed distorted and warped. My entire body was numb, and my sense of touch seems to have been dulled.

I wondered whether or not this was permanent. Was I going to remain this way forever? Was I going to be trapped, permanently paralyzed for the rest of my life? Would I ever know whether or not Rose had made it out alive? Was she with me now? A thousand different questions swarmed through my mind. Each time I heard a human voice, I would start to wonder: _Is that her_? _Is Rose here, speaking to me now_? _Is it someone else_? _Is Rose okay_? _Is she dead_? _Was she caught by her mother or by Cal_? _If so, will she be able to escape them_? _Where is she_? _Where am_ _I_? _Where was Fabrizio and Tommy_? _Had Cora and her family made it out all right_?

I had no idea as to the whereabouts of anyone I loved. Had they made it out okay? Had they found their way to a lifeboat? Had they been pulled from the water like I had? I found myself in a constant state of worry. More than anything, I needed to know they were all right.

That night, the first of the nightmares came. Every time I fell asleep, I could see them. Rose, lying cold and dead on that door. Fabrizio, laying in the water, staring at me with unseeing eyes. Cora and her family, trapped in a ship that had become their tomb. Over and over, I would see all the people I had met over the past few days, dead in the water. Dead, frozen, crushed by machinery. I would awake each time in a cold sweat, unable to move and too exhausted to avoid falling back asleep.

In one particular nightmare, Rose and I had both made it onto the lifeboat. She was shivering beside me, clutching desperately to my arm.

"Jack," She whispered to me, "I'm so cold."

"It will be all right." I'd murmur, "We're safe now. We're in the lifeboat. All we have to do now is wait for a ship to answer the distress call. They should be here any minute."

Hours would seem to pass, and no ship would ever come. All the while, I could feel her shivering worsen. She would clutch desperately at my arm, as her hands became colder and colder. Suddenly, the shivering stopped. I nudged her arm, only to get no response.

"Rose?", I whispered. No response. I grasped her shoulders and lightly shook her, but her head just rolled to the side.

"ROSE!" I held her chin in my hands, searching desperately for any sign of life from her. There was none. I could feel the tears spilling from my eyes as, just on the horizon, there appeared another ship. I shook her shoulders a little harder now, not daring to believe it.

"Rose! There's a ship!" I shouted, shaking her out of desperation. It was no use. The ship had come, but it had come too late.

By the time the nightmare had ended, I had regained the ability to open my eyes. I awoke to a flood of light, and tears still streaming down my face. It took several minutes for me to realize that it had only been a nightmare. Slowly, my breathing began to return to normal. It was okay, sort of. Rose's whereabouts were unknown at the moment, and there was still a chance that she was alive. There was still a chance (however very small that chance may be) that all of them were alive. For now, all I could do was hope.

Over the next 24 hours, my condition began to improve. Slowly, but surely, I could feel the sensation returning to my limbs. Slowly, I regained the ability to use my arms and legs. At first, I was only able to move one of my fingers. Within hours, I was able to move my hand and toes. A few hours more, and I was able to move my arms and legs in their entirety, albeit slowly. By the end of the first day, it was abundantly clear that I would eventually make a full recovery. All the while, I could not stop thinking of Rose.

My hearing began to clear throughout the day as well. Shortly after I began to move my fingers, I could begin to discern the voices around me. It was then that I realized Rose wasn't in the room. There seemed to be about half a dozen people coming in and out throughout the day, but none of the voices were ones that I recognized. Sadly, I would have to wait until I recovered to get my answers.

The next night, the nightmares returned. I could see Cora, clinging to her parents, with no one to help her. I could see Fabrizio, crushed by falling machinery. I could see Tommy, frozen and dead in the water. Over and over again, the nightmares would haunt my mind.

The only real improvement was that I could move this time. I could open my eyes. I could wipe the tears away (although it took a lot longer than it normally would to do so). One of the women in the room I was in would occasionally come to my bed and try to calm me down. I couldn't yet make out what exactly was being said, but I could tell by her tone that she was trying to console me. I appreciated the effort, but there really wasn't anything she could do. More than anything, I needed to see a familiar face.

It was almost dawn when I fell back into an uneasy slumber. Predictably (by this point), the nightmares returned.

Rose was in tears. She was standing in the doorway a grand cathedral, dressed in an expensive wedding gown. Filling the cathedral was a crowd of well, dressed people, all gathered to witness what was about to take place. At the other end of the aisle, standing at the altar, was Cal.

"Rose, now you stop that!", her mother hissed in her ear. "All of Philadelphia's high society is here. Do you really want them to look down on us? Do you want them to think I raised an ungrateful child?" The wedding march began to play, but Rose could not stop crying.

"Run!", I shouted at the top of my lungs. "Get out of there!" I reached out my hand, offering it to her. "You don't need to do this, Rose! Don't let them trap you!" Despite the fact that I was standing at the head of the aisle yelling at her, no one even looked up. Was this how Rose had felt when I met her?

The wedding march played, as Rose marched slowly down the aisle. As she reached the altar, the music stopped, and the priest began to speak.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony."

I shouted all the while for Rose to get out of there. I offered her my hand, offered to take her away from here.

"You don't want to do this, Rose!" I shouted, "He'll kill you! Please, Rose! I love you too much to let you do this!" All the while, no one so much as glanced in my direction. It was as if I was invisible.

"Do you, Caldon, take Rose to be your lawfully wedded wife, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, so long as you both shall live?"

"I do." Caldon answered. I wanted to wipe that self-satisfied smirk right off his face.

"And do you, Rose, take Caldon to be your lawfully wedded husband, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, so long as you both shall live?"

Rose didn't say a word. Instead, she pulled out a small revolver from what appeared to be the with tears in her eyes, she lifted the revolver to her temple.

"Rose, NO!" I screamed. "YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS! I can get you out of here, right now! We can forget about this wedding, and just run away together! You don't have to.."

Before I could finish my sentence, before cal could take the gun from her hands, Rose pulled the trigger.

Instantly, I sat bolt upright. My eyes popped open as I searched frantically around. Wherever this was, it most certainly wasn't on the door in the middle of the ocean. In fact, it looked like I was on a ship – afloat. How did this happen? Where was I? More importantly, where was Rose?

I was lying on a bed in a small room. There were about ten other beds in the room, all of which had a partition folded up on both sides. Throughout the tiny room, about half a dozen nurses tended to about ten different patients. On the far wall, there was a counter with a number of first aid supplies and a small sink.

"Lie down!" I turned around in shock to see a stern, matronly nurse next to the bed. It was clear from the look on her face that she didn't really like me much. "You'll hurt yourself!"

Sure enough, a jolt of pain shot though my arm from my wrist. I fell back onto the bed and noticed that my hands were wrapped in gauze, with the fingers separated. The handcuffs were still on my wrists, but there was layer of gauze that had been wedged beneath it. It was this layer of gauze than now separated the frozen metal from my bare skin.

It was then that I noticed that my clothes were missing, replaced with something that felt like a hospital gown. This disturbed me. Where did my clothes go? Who dressed and undressed me? Why was I wearing a hospital gown? Where were my clothes? Why were my hands wrapped in gauze?

"Poor dear," a younger nurse chided, noting the confused look on my face. "Don't be so hard on him, Winnie." She turned to me. "Terribly sorry about that. Winnie just tends to jump to conclusions sometimes."

"Jump to conclusions?" Winnie asked angrily, "Marybeth, the kid's got handcuffs on him! Why else would he be handcuffed if he wasn't a criminal?"

"I was accused of a crime I didn't commit." I told her. Winnie looked as me skeptically. She didn't seem to believe my story. Marybeth seemed a bit more forgiving.

"Criminal or not, that's no reason to leave someone to die in that water!" Marybeth snapped. Winnie seemed offended.

"And when did I ever say that?" Winnie retorted. "I took care of him, didn't I? You don't see the master at arms in here, do you?" I had a feeling I probably wasn't going to get the answers I needed anytime soon. At the very least, perhaps I could stop getting them to refer to me as "that boy".

"Only because the kid was nearly frozen to death when we found him!" Marybeth answered, "Hell, the lifeboat that came around thought he was dead at first. Wasn't until the crewman saw an air bubble that he figured maybe the kid was alive after all."

This was getting really awkward to listen to. Still, that bit of information did help to put things into perspective.

"Was there anyone with me at the time?" I cut in, "Perhaps a young woman, about my age?" Marybeth shook her head.

"Not when they found you.", she answered. "There was another lifeboat that picked up about four survivors. One of them froze to death in the boat, though. Poor dear."

Uh oh. Three people out of more than fifteen hundred. I wasn't liking those odds. Even worse, Rose hadn't been with me when they picked me out of the water. Either Rose and the other lifeboat had mistaken me for dead, or…I tried not to think about the alternative. It couldn't be.

"Do you know who those three people were?", I asked. Marybeth sadly shook her head.

"They were brought in with all the other passengers." She explained. "You were brought here because you were practically on death's door. I am honestly quite surprised you made it at all." I smiled.

"Like I told Rose," I informed her, "I'm a survivor."


End file.
